


Acolytes in the temple of Aphrodite

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Multi, TSC Prompt 31
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They tried not to catch each other watching her sway her way back to the grass-thatched cantina, and they didn't talk about the throaty Chicago tones that made it clear she was a college student taking her summer abroad. They pretended not to notice how the dark golden tan made her eyes glow like aquamarines, and how the neat plait only made them ache to see that thick, caramel-coloured hair loose on the wind. And they definitely don't mention how the sarong she wears is usually tied at her hips these days, the taut planes of her belly and gentle curves of her breasts showcased in a tiny, white, string bikini that practically begs to be untied.</p><p>They don't talk about her at all, because they've seen the lust burning in each other's eyes, and the glimmer of something in hers that suggests if they did ask her to stay, she might actually consider it. And that's unthinkable, because they're both past forty and she's barely twenty and they don't do that sort of shit anymore.</p><p>And then the sirocco blows in."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for theorgyarmada’s challenge Revolution: The Second Coming. This is my Bass/Charlie/Miles fill for prompt 31: “They like to compete to see who can keep her attention the longest.”

They stuck a pin in the map to figure out where to spend their first full fortnight of libo since being transferred to Lemonnier. It's not that they hated the place, but the blistering north African heat had them dreaming of snowcaps and mountain breezes, while the endless blowing sand that found its way into every orifice had both of them craving somewhere - anywhere - clean.

They ended up in Crete. Cheap airfares and just a few hours away, and no ridiculous laws to stop them getting hammered around the clock. Once they left the achingly pretty little towns, it was almost as hot and sandy as Djibouti, but at least people were dressed for it here. The locals were a buttoned up lot, but the tourists might as well have been naked, waltzing their way through archaeological sites and ancient churches and olive grove hikes in the same bikinis and boardshorts they'd wandered off the beach in.

“Fucking heaven,” Bass decided by their second beer.

They're surrounded by four millenia of military history, and Bass swore that one day he'll read up on it, but right then, they were too exhausted – shellshocked, shattered, mind-numbingly exhausted – to do anything other than sit on the beach and drink.

Matala has a cluster of beachside restaurants they rejected as too tacky, instead taking a cabana attached to a mouldering, palm thatched shack on the cliff overlooking Red Beach. There's an old man who seems to do little other than doze in the sun, a middle-aged woman who cooks, and a young girl they christened Aphrodite the first time they saw her smile.

It was Aphrodite who knocked on their door every morning to see if they wanted the room cleaned, and who trekked across the sand in the afternoon to deliver expertly made mojitos and locally caught fish. The first few times they pressed too many bills into her hand, she rolled her eyes and smirked as she pointed out just how much they've tried to overpay her. By the third day, she just thanked them with a heartstopping grin.

They tried not to catch each other watching her sway her way back to the grass-thatched cantina, and they didn't talk about the throaty Chicago tones that made it clear she was a college student taking her summer abroad. They pretended not to notice how the dark golden tan made her eyes glow like aquamarines, and how the neat plait only made them ache to see that thick, caramel coloured hair loose on the wind. And they definitely don't mention how the sarong she wears is usually tied at her hips these days, the taut planes of her belly and gentle curves of her breasts showcased in a tiny, white, string bikini that practically begs to be untied.

They don't talk about her at all, because they've seen the lust burning in each other's eyes, and the glimmer of something in hers that suggests if they did ask her to stay, she might actually consider it. And that's unthinkable, because they're both past forty and she's barely twenty and they don't _do_ that sort of shit anymore.

Then the sirocco comes in hot and vicious, and they start sleeping on their little patio, and when that doesn't work, on the beach. She nudges them awake with a bare, pink-polished toe on her way to her morning swim, and they groan in concert as she swings her way down the beach. Sometimes she hears them, and the grin she throws over her shoulder is far from innocent.

“Tempting minx,” Miles rasps, and Bass just stares, ensorcelled.

*

Great fat splats of water on his face startle him awake, and he opens his eyes to clear, pure blue. Not the sky, he realises after a long blink. Aphrodite, eyes wide as she leans over him, giggling.

“Come on, you idiots. You'll be drenched. Get under cover,” she laughs, shoving at his shoulder. The joy bubbling in her voice doesn't give him an incentive to move though, so he thunks his head back onto the sand and closes his eyes again. He doesn't want to move. Warm sand, big splashy raindrops, Bass next to him with an armful of happy, laughing girl.

_Wait._

He turns his head to consider that and collects a foot in the face. Aphrodite is sobbing with laughter, kicking and slapping at Bass as he tries to tickle her ribs. Kid has some moves, Miles has to admit. She's nearly escaped him, but then she turns it around and pounces right back.

“Argh! Help me out, brother,” Bass howls as she tackles him, knees on his biceps and one forearm pinning him across the throat.

“Like you aren't enjoying it,” Miles snorts, and watches the girl blush. She's not unaware of what she does to them, but it doesn't make her shift off him. Interesting. Fucking dangerous, but interesting, he revises hastily. “How did this happen, anyway?”

“It was a vicious and unprovoked tickle attack,” she pouts, but Bass gives himself away with a wince. She'd tried to wake him, and Bass had come up swinging, Miles reckons. He does it himself. Luckily, Bass wakes up faster than Miles does, and must have been able to disguise the instinctive attack.

“Never wake a sleeping Marine, kid. Seriously. You could'a got hurt.”

She eases up on her stranglehold and shifts backwards, suddenly uncomfortable. “Sorry. It was just a heads up. This is just the preshow – it's going to bucket down soon. Thought you'd want to get out of the rain.”

“We're tough guys, sweetheart. Marines aren't afraid of no rain,” Bass hams it up, and the mood shifts again, flirtation creeping back in. He twists out of her hold and grabs both of her hands, pulling them over his head. The position gives him a close-up view of perky breasts threatening to escape from her bikini top, and Bass practically salivates, the laugh dying on his lips as he makes no attempt to hide just how much he likes the view.

They lock gazes when Bass finally lifts his head, and Aphrodite smirks, the challenge clear in her eyes. Miles wonders if she's actually forgotten he's there, or if she just doesn't care.

Either way, Bass needs to be rescued from his stupid.

“Can't be too bad if you were going for a swim,” Miles says loudly, nodding at the increasingly grey sea. “Sure it's safe out there?”

She takes a long, settling breath before she looks away from Bass to respond. “I'm a good swimmer,” she replies, something dark in her eyes suggesting the conversation is happening on more than one level. “I like it a little rough.”

Miles pretends not to notice Bass' tortured gasp as she shifts on him, dragging her ass over his obviously swollen cock. It could have been accidental.

“Besides. What's to worry about when I've got two, big, tough Marines here to keep me safe,” she flutters mockingly. “What's the rule? Always swim with friends?”

She practically makes him say it.

“Bass and I are a hell of a lot more than friends, kid. You're way out of your league here.”

She pinks a little at that, and eases herself up onto her knees. They can both see, then, just how hard Bass is, rigid under his old, threadbare cargoes. Just the sight of him makes Miles' cock twitch with interest, and he knows the girl doesn't miss that, either.

“So you ... don't like to swim?”

“Didn't say anything about not liking it. But there's a difference between a quick dip and having the shit pounded outta you on the bottom of the ocean in the middle of a storm.”

And maybe he's not as fucking scary as he thinks he is, because that long, steadying breath? The way her eyelids slam down to hide those piercing blue eyes, then oh-so-fucking-slowly drift upwards to reveal them blazing? Somehow, he's crossed the line from crude insinuation to outright dirty talk, and she's biting her lip, one hand straying up to her neck to stroke wonderingly at the skin she finds there.

It's the sexiest thing he's ever seen, this youthful goddess sitting on top of Bass, desperately groping for her self-control. Every argument he has for warning her off is fast evaporating in the face of his need to see her lose it.

She's still watching him as his eyes follow her hand, then drop lower to the delicious cleavage revealed by the little white bikini. Her skin glistens with droplets of water, and the urge to trace his tongue from one vertiginous slope to the next is near overwhelming. It must be written all over his face, because her hands are behind her neck now, toying with the tie under that thick fall of hair.

“Did you know this is a nude beach?' she asks, and he closes his eyes, doomed.

Bass groans deep in his throat and that's all it takes to tell him she's dropped the strings of her bikini, the cups flapping down to reveal two sunkissed breasts. Two dimpled areolas, two jutting nipples, his unhelpful brain supplies, body already primed for all the things they could do with so much beauty. (They'd lick and suck and bite, he and Bass, each other's perfect complement, always perfectly in tune. Sensation in stereo, swooping together then swirling apart, stubble scraping as their lips meet over a lush, female wonderland, hands tangling together, no need for words, clit and pussy and cocks and assholes, tongues and fingers and lips working in perfect accord, until they'd push her over the cliff, maybe hard, maybe soft, but always together.) Miles swallows, Bass' glazed look telling him he's lost in the same landscape, fucking this girl a million different ways, their years of experience and complete lack of boundaries married to devastating effect.

In fanciful moments he'll never admit to having, Miles has wondered if he and Bass are the product of some crazy Frankenstein, a perfect machine broken into two halves, created for just two things. They can no more walk away from this than they could a fight, he rationalises. He'll lay it all out. Make sure she knows what she's getting herself into. Take it slow.

Bass is already all crazy eyes and rock hard cock, so he might need some … incentive, Miles realises. He can be impressively obedient given the right motivation, even when half out of his mind with lust. Especially then, Miles smirks.

He rolls onto his side and looms up over Bass, ignoring the girl above them. The kiss is a filthy thing, all saliva and open-mouthed fight, and when Miles reaches back between the girl's spread thighs to wrap his hand around Bass' cock, he's gratified to find him twice as hard as he was before.

“Wanna fuck, Marine?” he growls, and somewhere behind him, Little Miss Plays-with-Fire lets out a long, shaky breath. Good. He needs everyone on the same page. “Me or her?”

The thought of having to choose makes Bass look positively panicked. Miles is tempted to roll his eyes – if Bass stopped to think he'd figure it out in a second – but he wants to wind the fucker up, not let him down easy. “Or maybe you wanna watch me fuck her?”

(He's the exhibitionist, and Bass the voyeur. Mostly.)

“Yeah. Both? Please? God yeah, Miles,” Bass rambles, his usual velvet tones nowhere in evidence. That voice is for manipulation, seduction, sweet-talking; this sandpaper-scratch is Bass so turned on he can barely put words together.

Miles soothes him with slow, twisting pull along his cock, then turns to the girl. If he'd thought her beautiful before, she's astonishing now that he's finally given himself permission to look. The riot of blondes and browns in her long, wavy hair, the unearthly blue of her eyes, the sensuality of that mouth, even without the miraculous grin that lights up her entire face. But even with all that, she's just another beautiful girl – sexier than most, but they've known more than a few. Then her eyes narrow and her chin drops, pugnacious.

“What makes you think it's up to him?” she asks, defiant, and he is _gone_.

He reaches for her and comes away grasping empty air. She's risen to her feet and stepped away in one flowing movement, staring down her patrician nose in challenge as he blinks up at her. He'd wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting in for, to set some ground rules, but she yanks the initiative away from him mercilessly. Whatever they do, it's going to be on her terms, that stare says. No need for a single word more.

His libido whimpers.

“Time for a swim,” she says, and turns to face the ocean. She rids herself of the dangling bikini top first, then steps out of the bottoms, knocking the breath from their bodies with the mesmerising sight of her baring herself to the elements as the storm moves in. As the splats become a shower, the wind whips her hair about her shoulders like a thousand angry snakes, before the rain blows in. She lifts her arms to the blackened sky, glorying in it, and maybe she's not Aphrodite at all, Miles thinks. Surely she's someone earthier, more fierce. A warrior, Miles thinks, and fights down the urge to sprint after her, and take her to the ground.

Then she turns to glance over her shoulder, and she's Aphrodite and Astarte and the Snake Goddess herself, every woman a man ever terrified himself with, danger and promise and life itself, throwing out her challenge.

Follow me if you dare.

“Miles?”

“Yeah, Bass?”

“We going swimming?”

“Oh yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie's heart is thumping so hard it hurts. She wonders if you can actually have a heart attack like this, just from wanting something so much. It's not just the wanting, she acknowledges. It's the desperate urge to do something you know you shouldn't, that you're not meant to want.

But they're beautiful, both of them, and seeing two men together like that … isn't she supposed to be repulsed? Vaguely offended, maybe? Not this, surely, so ridiculously, wantonly, desperately aroused.

They followed her into the water but kept their distance, treading water a few metres away from where she's enjoying the lift and fall of the windblown waves that pick her up and carry her toward the beach before she dives out to start the process over again. The chilly water almost douses the ache in her belly, but then the waves reminds her of how it felt to straddle the blond man … Bass. The dark guy called him Bass.

She doesn't need to know his name, not when she could feel his abdomen rippling underneath her every time she took a breath. Not when he looked at her as if she held all the secrets in the universe, so honest and wanting, unlike his dick of a friend.

Lover, she reminds herself. They're together, even if they seem more than happy to bring her into their bed. They are a couple, probably for a while given the way they talk, and she's merely a distraction.

So it can't hurt, right? She's half a world from home, and will never see them again, so why shouldn't she take this opportunity to walk on the wild side? They seem like good guys, and she hadn't missed the way the dark one – Miles – got ten times more interested the minute she'd stood up to him.

Any doubts that had been trying to creep in pretty much evaporated at that point. Men have been telling her to pipe down, chill out, brush it off, suck it up her whole life, and _fuck_ that. Someone who likes it when she gets mad? That just works better for her.

A whole lot better, Charlie smirks, as she watches them diving in and out of the waves. She's not immune to the physical appeal, obviously the soldier thing keeps them in better shape than most men decades younger, but that flash in his eyes when she'd talked back, the way the pretty one had almost come all over her feet … she had to force herself to walk away. Not to beg, if she's honest.

She finds herself moving towards the shallows, and hoping they'll follow. Because the conclusion is obvious.

Up until now, she's been picking the wrong men. Surely she's owed an extra to make up for all the duds.

*

They stalk her, lengthening the distance between them as they approach the sandbar where she’s stretched out, golden skin shining like a beacon against the black sky and storm-tossed sea.

Bass can feel his reason surrendering to lust, and the awful, immense power of it frightens him. Miles is the one who does this, not him. Miles is the one who likes to seduce strangers, to lure them into the bed they share, and watch Bass suffer through the carefully staged performance. He watches, entranced, because there’s something addictive about watching Miles fuck someone, but it’s as dangerous as tobacco or crack. He ends up jealous, bitter, wishing he could be enough.

But this girl, though.

He’d felt the air stir and woken leaping out of his skin, that long tumble of hair wrapped in his fist even before his eyes were properly open. He'd rolled her under him and had her head yanked back, neck bared for his blade, before he'd manage to register her as friend rather than foe. It was the terror in those extraordinary eyes that brought him back.

“Fuck. Sorry,” he rasped, and flipped them over, expecting her to scramble away, thoroughly burned. Instead, she stared down at him, as if trying to figure out what had happened. And that's when his goddamn cock woke up. He'd shifted, trying to disguise it, but she was sprawled out flat on top of him, and something hard poking into her thigh was just as incriminating as poking into her belly.

He expected her to move, but … not like that. Not to pull her knees up so she can sit up on him, not to slide back and forth a little bit, teasing him from incidentally interested to full-throttle aroused. Not to ride him, cock nestled in the warm, increasingly wet haven between her legs, aquamarine eyes fixed on his, the invitation loud and clear.

He's seconds away from rolling her under him once more and sinking into her when he catches sight of Miles out of the corner of his eye. Guilt just about paralyses him, because for a moment there, for longer than a moment if he's honest, he'd forgotten him completely. Miles, the man he’s loved since before they discovered what sex was.

They’d agreed early on – there could be other people, but they follow the rules. Just one rule, in fact: they always do it together. Bass had sworn he _couldn’t_ cheat, he barely notices the other people in their bed for watching Miles, so to be so caught up in this girl – it shocked him into changing course.   He tickled her, and she dissolved into giggles, and then peals of laughter, wriggling all over him and waking Miles in the process.

The minute those dark-brown eyes opened, Bass could feel his equilibrium rebalance.   Miles liked Aphrodite too. His ass is still sore from last night, when Miles had fucked him achingly slow, dripping fantasy after fantasy into his ear. They’d smoked afterwards, trying to decide which was their favourite, then decided it was a tie, between stretching her out on the driftwood bar up at the main house, or watching her change the sheets on the bed, bare pussy on display every time she bends over.

Miles had edged him for hours, hands tight around his throat as his whisky voice spun one dirty tale after another, “we’re just sitting there, watching, tasting her in the air, and she knows she’s doing it, keeping her legs straight, waving her ass in the air, pink slit all dripping … then she actually kneels on the bed, Bass. Crawls forward on all fours and looks over her shoulder. Course we’ve got our cocks out, jacking each other, and what does she say?”

His mind had been lurching from one almost to the next, frazzled and raw, so his heart had bled out the gaps. “Don’t waste it. Come all over me. Cover me in your cum, and then even when you fucking me, you’ll be fucking each other too. “

They’d both exploded at that, Miles filling his ass with a wash of heat even as his hand unclamped from around Bass’ cock. He should feel guilty now, remembering the things they’d said about this girl, but the urge to share the stories with her, to see if they did as much for her as they had for them … his control had nearly snapped right then.

And that was before Miles had tried to warn her off, and she'd lifted that proud little chin and served it right back. He's not sure he's ever seen anyone try to beat Miles as his wicked, forked-tongue game, and Bass has a wild suspicion that she might even have won. And stripping nude had nothing to do with it – okay, not nothing, but not everything, either. Something far more primal had moved between them, and now … now they are letting it have its head.

He's going to fuck her and fuck her and fuck her, and watch Miles doing the same and it's going to be the most glorious sexual encounter of his life. Somehow, he's certain of that, a warm nugget of knowledge deep in his gut that has all the weight of an ancient prophecy. This is Greece, after all, and Aphrodite was always the most cunning of their gods … if she felt a need to disguise herself, those flat Chicago tones would throw anyone off the trail.

Bass laughs at himself getting all fanciful, nearly missing the moment Miles jerks his head in the order to close up. He'll take her from behind, Bass will go in straight. He's not sure why they're bothering, given she didn't seem inclined to run, and there was no way they'd chase her if she did. But she's tense and waiting, despite her languid pose, and he doesn't want to assume, but … dammit. He's been around long enough to know anticipation when he sees it.

They pounce.

She dives into unexpectedly deep water, slipping through their fingers like a fish (what were they called? The Nereids?) and striking away from them with a smooth, fast crawl. But she's miscalculated, because they're Marines, and used to doing this in full battledress. Within minutes, they've swum her down, pulled her back to shallow water, and caged her in their arms.

The waves lap at their knees as they jostle, Aphrodite trapped between their chests, water streaming down her torso as if trying to pull attention to every glorious curve. She’s putting up a pretence of trying to escape, but her hands are lingering as they flail, trailing along biceps and over butts and – fuck! – skimming over his achingly hard cock.

And just like that, the world flips, the predators suddenly prey. She purrs, and leans back to lick a wet trail along his jaw line as her fingers wrap around his cock. Both of their cocks, he realises when Miles huffs out a breath every bit as shaky as his own. She pumps slowly, biting her lip as Miles’ eyes slip shut, fierce arousal sitting high on his cheekbones as he bucks into her hand.

“Don't you think it's time to give up the game? I want to play, old man. I want you to fuck me. Both of you. Maybe even --”

Pink races up from her chest to suffuse her face with a gentle glow. Whatever 'maybe' she'd been about to offer, Aphrodite was embarrassed by it. The gentleman in him can’t let that pass.

“Last night? Miles fucked me while we talked about the things we wanted to do to you. The thought of fucking you together? That’s what made us both come,” Bass confesses.

“That’s the only way this is going to happen,” Miles grunts. “One at a time out here, though. If we’re going to try anything more … adventurous, that’ll need a bed. And other things.”

Aphrodite’s mouth drops open as she wonders exactly what Miles might class as adventurous, and Bass suddenly feels like a dirty old man. He probably should, he accepts ruefully. He and Miles pretty much fit the dictionary definition, and that was before they’d pursued a young goddess into the sea with every intention of debauching her.

To be fair, the young goddess is begging to be debauched, wide blue eyes dark with desire as she bites and licks at each of their mouths in turn, then drops to her knees to try her luck elsewhere. Her full breasts float on top of the water, nipples so engorged they look like ripe raspberries and he needs them in his mouth so desperately … and he needs not to come, not yet.

“Aphrodite!” Bass pulls himself free of her mouth and sprawls backwards onto the sandbar, his cock hardening even further at the sudden rush of cool air. “Ride me.”

Miles growls and continues to fuck her mouth even as he guides her down, the glorious curves of her ass making Bass’ mouth water as she settles over him, reverse cowgirl style. She’s leaning forward into Miles, mouth and hands busy, but the way she is angling her hips, trying but failing to catch his cock, makes it clear she is begging for his help. He guides himself into her, mouthing his devotion against the nape of her neck as her sweet, hot pussy engulfs him with a long shudder that electrifies them both.

“Jesus, Bass, you should see this girl’s face,” Miles croons. “She’s loving your cock, brother. Her eyes actually closed with the way it felt. I’m fucking jealous.”

He wants to tell Miles he’s jealous too, because he’s got Aphrodite’s glowing face, and her glorious bouncing tits to play with.  And Bass _loves_ the long line of her back and the plump curves of her ass, not to mention the wet inferno below, he really does, but he wants to feel the weight of her in his hands, and memorise the texture of her skin. (Wants to hear all the different types of noises he can pull from her, wants her slurping at his cock, wants to win her attention away from Miles and hog it all for himself.)

Bass swats away the stray thought and tells himself he wants Miles here. He needs Miles here, that saturnine face looking down into his, the glimpses he gets of that long, veined cock as it disappears into her mouth, so big she needs her hands to wrap around his base. Why compete when he could help her, teach her all the little tricks that will fling Miles over the edge, a helpless wreck of a man? They could take turns, he moans, her pussy spasming as he starts to fuck her more furiously. They could …

He jackknifes into a sitting position so that he can plaster himself against her back, then reaches around and fills one palm with her lush curves, cupping her, stroking her, memorising the differences in texture he discovers as he explores everything from the hidden flesh underneath to the sensitive territory just below her armpits. Soon, he’ll kiss her there, he vows, brand her with his devotion there, and there, and there, but right now … he massages them forward and up, flicks at her raspberry nipples with his thumbs and pushes the soft handfuls upwards, an offering from Bass to Miles.

It’s too much for his brother, who cries in anguish as he yanks his spurting cock out of her mouth. Aphrodite cries out in protest, reaches for him, and Miles lets himself be caught. The streams of cum are hot against his hands and sticky against her skin when he draws swirls in them. “Cream for your raspberries,” he whispers in her ear, and “careful we don’t eat you up.”

She’s overcome by giggles, and he’s just plain overcome. Finesse abandons him as the pressure starts to build, the haze descending even as he clamps his palm over her mons and rubs furiously.   Thankfully, she’s as far gone as he is, her sex already rippling around him as she bounces and slams and yowls, their bodies bucking and shuddering and shrieking their bliss to sea and sky alike.

They collapse afterwards, Aphrodite nestled against his chest and Miles crawling close to sprawl half over each of them.   He doesn’t want to close his eyes, Bass thinks, because then this might prove to be a dream. And they have no time to waste.

Raspberries and cream. An even sweeter tang waiting further south. Miles, and a bed, and their Aphrodite in it. He could die tomorrow, he thinks, and he would die happy. Even better – he’d die complete, an acolyte in the temple of Aphrodite. And they don’t even know her name.

They never do. Not that time, not later when they tumble into the cabana together, hard and hot and wet and hungry once more. Not when they tie her to the bed and torture her by exploring every last inch of her with their tongues, not when they coordinate their assault to tip her into oblivion over and over again. Not when they ask her if she’s sure, if she’s really, really sure, and she begs them to do it, to breach her last boundary, to take her together, one behind, one in front, all three of them babbling of heaven.

Not even after, when they collapse onto the bed with groans of exhaustion, but are too keyed up to sleep. They talk, instead, roving over a thousand different subjects while grumbling about the heat, even as they crawl all over each other like a pile of puppies.

She’ll miss them when they’re gone, she confesses, and this. She’ll never forget this. She’s going to use it to keep her going through her return to the States and the world’s worst family Christmas.

“We haven’t been back in forever,” Bass says longingly. “My family – they’re gone, and this dick …”

His brother snorts. “My family don’t want me around. I love my brother but his wife keeps his balls in her fucking purse. Apparently we’d scare the children or something.”

Bass shakes his head, obviously weary of what is an old argument. “Go by yourself, brother. It’s us they can’t handle, not you. I’ll hole up in a motel or something, you show up for Christmas dinner, and I’ll be waiting after. You deserve to have your family in your life.”

It’s Aphrodite who snorts this time.

“Swap you. A mother who thinks I’m stupid and a father who’ll never see me as anything but his sweet little girl. Do I look sweet to you?” she pouts, stretching out an impudent foot to nudge at Miles’ shoulder with her toes.

He captures it and massages the arch of her foot with his thumb, making her flop back into Bass’ lap, moaning with delight.

He grins at Miles as the hand that had been resting on her belly moves lower, sliding between her thighs to slick back and forth, gathering her juices. “So sweet,” he grins, licking her from his fingers ostentatiously.

Miles makes a pained noise and Bass takes pity on him, leaning forward to slick his sticky fingers over his lover’s lips. Miles attacks them the same way he attacks everything in life, sucking voraciously, pillaging remorselessly, intent on stealing every last drop of fragrant goodness. Bass is achingly hard by the time Miles decides he is done; it’s a simple (mind-blowing, terrifying) thing for Aphrodite to turn her face into his cock, starting the spiral all over again.

Names are unimportant, they agree. She is Aphrodite, and anyone who can make Aphrodite come so hard can’t be a mere mortal, she decides. He is as golden as Apollo, and his lover? Ares, perhaps, or Hades. “So menacing and delicious,” she says, climbing over him to declare her dominion.

“Maybe it better be Ares, because if you were Hades? I’d never want to leave the Underworld,” she purrs as his cock cleaves her pussy. It makes him weep, now, to remember how they’d thought nothing of it, that lover’s tease. It proves a hard lesson to learn.

When mortals play at being Gods, sometimes the Gods are listening.


	3. Chapter 3

Shane MacGowan is shambling his way through Fairytale of New York somewhere behind the heavy white door. At least his big brother still has some taste, Miles thinks uncharitably, eyeing the blow-up reindeer on the overly manicured lawn. It's a little too suburban, and a lot too Christmassy for his taste, but hey. For the Pogues, he'll knock.

For Ben, he'll sit through dinner with Rachel, introductions to the niece and nephew he can't remember, and some lame attempt at giftgiving. Then he'll hightail it the fuck out of there, back to Bass and the bottle of Dalmore and box of cigars they haven't opened yet.

Miles sighs and lays his knuckles to the wood. Merry fucking Christmas.

Then Aphrodite opens the door.

*

The long lost Uncle is a Marine, apparently. She wonders – no. Uncle. Bad Charlie. They’re probably not all like that anyway.

She’s still fighting down her smirk when the knock on the door comes, and sure enough, everyone else in the goddamn place is too busy to answer it, Mom up to her elbows in some fancy dessert and Dad hanging even more lights out back.   Wait ‘til he sees the fucking electricity –

Holy shit.

Motherfucking Christ on a –

“What the hell are you doing here?” the dark god snarls, and it can’t be, it can’t be, how could it possibly be …

“Miles!” Dad pushes past and grabs the taller man – Uncle Miles, her gleeful conscience taunts, never mind that you let him and his friend fuck you five ways from Friday – in a bear hug. “Did Charlie even get around to introducing herself?”

The giggles hurl themselves up from somewhere deep in her belly, and then she makes the mistake of glancing at Hades. The poor dude is white with shock, but there’s something pulling at his mouth too, something wry and disbelieving, as if he understands exactly how ridiculous this. All Charlie can do is laugh harder, collapsing against the wall as he shakes his head and looks back to Dad with a questioning lift of one eyebrow.

“My very strange daughter, Charlotte Matheson. Who will probably tell you to call her Charlie,” her Dad frowns. “Charlie, my brother, Miles Matheson.”

She drags in a lungful of air in a bid to quell the hysteria and straightens up. “Nice to meet you, Uncle Miles.” She even offers him her hand.

He shakes it slowly, and it’s a perfectly innocent gesture, she tells herself. No cause for her pulse to go crazy like that. No reason for arousal to rake its claws down her spine. They’re not going to do this.

Are they?

*

“Nice family shot for my phone,” he jokes, and makes them line up against the mantle. The first is classic Christmas cheese, the second one is a closeup of his niece glaring at him through that glorious tumble of hair.

“Apollo like the photo?” she asks an hour and three eggnogs later, and fuck, he’s had way too much whiskey not to take that where it wants to go.

“He says it will do until we send him something better,” he smirks, then curses under his breath when she takes it as a challenge.

*

Bass curses as his phone beeps for the twentieth time that night. Fuck, he gets it. She’s his niece! It’s a disaster! They are the lowest, most perverted lifeforms ever to crawl on the surface of the planet and if he has to beat out a thousand mea culpas he will, but for the love of God just stop texting, Miles!

He pushes himself up from the bed to retrieve his phone from the other side of the room, wondering if he can get away with pretending it’s broken. Or he’s too drunk to text anymore. Latter is closer to the truth, he thinks as he swipes it open, then stares.

It’s another photo. A series of them, in fact.

She doesn’t look angry like in the first one, or fake-happy like in the second. She’s on her knees, Miles’ huge hand holding back her hair as she sucks him, cherry-red lips in a perfect circle around his cock. His hand is shaking and his cock twitching as he swipes into the second image.

Mother of God.

The glorious columns of her thighs frame a glistening pink diorama in between, delicate folds and engorged nub alike glossed with arousal. And then the phone buzzes once more, and another message fills his screen, and he can’t breathe for imagining what it could possibly be this time.

The fucker. The absolute dick - though maybe he’s blaming the wrong fucking person, given the angle. It’s Miles, huge hands clutching at her hips as he buries his tongue deep in her pussy, eyes closed in bliss. There’s even a message attached.

“Christmas Dinner was good. You?”

The phone drops to the floor beside the bed as Bass gives into the urge to liberate his now-aching cock. He doesn’t think to check if there are any more messages.

And by the time the key turns in the door, he’s coming too hard to care.

*

This the path to the Underworld, Charlie knows. Over there, if you look hard enough, are the regrets of all the girls who wanted a man so badly they didn’t care who he was. And in that direction, you can see their inhibitions, thrown away one at a time.

She parks behind Miles, wondering if their flimsy excuses for a getaway can possibly hold up. All it had taken had been a couple of mentions of Bass and her parents were all tight-lipped and keen to get rid of him. So much so they barely quibbled when Charlie said she’d planned to head back to her dorm rather than stay the night.

He kisses her in the doorway, and harder once they tumble into the room where Apollo is supposedly waiting.   But he couldn’t wait, apparently.

He’s jacking hard, coating his own belly in stream after stream of cum, eyes too dazed to register their presence until the bed dips on either side of him. He tries to smile at the sight of her, but his hips choose that moment to buck upwards in one, last salvo of bliss, and Miles pounces, pinning him down.

“What have we here? Uncle Bass must be too ashamed to say hello to little Charlie,” Miles purrs. “All he can remember is how good it felt to fuck her virgin ass. Or is he all worked up by how sweet her pussy was?”

Charlie rolls her eyes. It had taken less than three hours for Miles to get from shocked and appalled to insisting she call him Uncle Miles as he fucked her in the bathroom. She’d been singing it like a prayer by the time he let her come, and yes, nothing has ever gotten her quite so wet.

“Well, if Uncle Miles would stop tormenting Uncle Bass for a second and come undress me, maybe we could get on with reminding him,” she snarks, hands already busy reacquainting themselves with Apollo’s truly godlike body. Hades stalks around the bed to stand behind her, his leashed intensity practically scorching her skin as he guides her t-shirt over her head and encourages her skirt fall to the floor. It’s not until she is naked that she can let go of Charlie Matheson and slips back into Aphrodite’s skin.

Aphrodite who commands Hades to fuck Apollo, and gets herself off while she watches. Aphrodite who finds the handcuffs in the bedside drawer, and picks the man least likely to submit. Aphrodite who rocks on Apollo’s cock until conscious thought is beyond her, and is completely unashamed by the tears that run down her face as she begs Hades to fill her completely.

Charlie can feel Aphrodite rising when she insists Bass attends their next family dinner, and can hear her cackling when her acolytes are caught in a long, passionate kiss. “I’m moving in with Miles and Bass,” she smirks as her parents flail. “They’re buying a place next to the college.”

It’s Charlie Matheson who graduates, but Aphrodite who fucks her lovers in the anteroom just off the hall just minutes after she walks. Charlie who stands up at Bass and Miles’ wedding, and Aphrodite who scandalises the gathering with a long, wet kiss for each of the grooms as they say goodbye.

In the humdrum of everyday adult life, it’s easy to forget her own divinity. But five years, ten years, twenty years after the day they chased her into the waves during a Cretan storm, Aphrodite lives on.

There’s nothing forbidden to her. Nothing that can’t be excused. Dark and light, moon and sun, love and hate: they are the world, and she, the pendulum that swings between.

“Worship me,” she commands, and they bend their heads to obey.

_fin_


End file.
